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George Carlin on the American Dream (with transcript)

This legendary rant is even better when read. The transcripts I could find always sucked. So I've made what i hope is a more readable version below, so this classic piece of polemical gold can be shared and understood more widely. I've read it dozens of times. I still can't find a flaw in it, or anything even exaggerated. He's right. We're fucked. Unless we think of some way to fight back. I have my ideas. Do you?

Read it first. Then watch the video. Then read it again. Then share it far and wide with the little green button. Retweets do count.

Transcript

But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed.

It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.

Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want:

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests.

Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It's a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.

By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you.

They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.

It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it.

we need to stop talking about it and do something we need to become a single voice and stand up to all of them if we took off one day and all stayed home from work everywhere they would be in big trouble buit people are afriad to stand up and act

Nerktwins

Carlin is funny as hell. But, he is wrong here. People are stupid because, well, people are stupid. Most are only interested in self pleasures and bad habits. Our country is failing because the majority of the people are selfish.

Carlin is usually spot on. He missed this one.

http://profile.yahoo.com/VNRJ2A2JOS3JKGVMMRAS5CXMG4 Megan

He’s saying that people are stupid, but giving a reason WHY they are stupid, so I fail to see how he ‘missed’ anything.

http://www.facebook.com/gail.k.lightfoot Gail Katherine Lightfoot

People do not lack intelligence. They lack the initiative to think outside the prescribed and approved box. Going along to get along is taught in preschool and carried on during the 12 year sentence of gov’t education. We are smart enough. Just lulled into complancy by being told the people in power or in control of your life a tthe time that a fictional ‘they’ are taking care of everything for you. Not true!

http://twitter.com/bjorkluv Carrie

WRONG! WRONG! this is just what is going on. The generation growing up now need stimulation from devices that do not require much brain effort. I do not know how old you are Nerk, But YOU missed this one. Not all people are stupid. Carlin was SPOT ON with this wonderful rant

Juno3127

You couldn’t be more wrong. People will usually rise and fall to the level of their circumstances. Watch the documentary, “Re-Generation”

A simple way to fix everything would be to turn off your TV. Just turn it off and educate yourself. It is impossible to consider yourself educated while watching television. It is an ignorant medium that keeps us passive and under control. Staring at a tube endlessly with our mouths open is totally counter productive. Open a book (The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy and Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky) and wake the F up.

Guest

RON JEREMY LIVES!!!

Vachonica

A simple way to fight back would be for the political districts to be redrawn in such a way that they are 50% Democrat and 50% Republican (none of this “safe seat” stuff they have now). Will it change much? No. But if the election could go either way every time, more people would pay attention and more people would vote. The officeholders and the office aspirants would have to work harder for their votes. [I would also accept 33% Dem/ 33% Rep/33% Independent]

I disagree concerning NOT VOTING…the people’s initiatives are an excellent way to change the slave system…Voting for the least bad candidate is still something in the false dichotomy of DIMS vs RIPS….Green & Libertarians are options also & help get some media discourse. George was an American philosopher–COMEDY is the vehicle.

Blah

Screw Bill Maher. Racist zionist piece of garbage.

http://profile.yahoo.com/WTGLWH5B2OCTTGVV3WHCYBHCTM Don

Why are they continuing to argue and change boundries of voter districts? It’s to gain various racial groups as neighborhoods become more mixed. The only way to conduct fair vote is the “one person, one vote” concept, otherwise a “yes” vote from a didtrict of 50,000 counters the “no” vote from a district of 250,000, bottom line, voters have no control. It’s an illusion, or placibo for masses.